A Cheshire Lad
by alais
Summary: It's the year of Richard Sharpe's birth, and the year the first of his Chosen Men joins the army. This is Dan Hagman's backstory.
1. Setting forth

**February 1777 - Cheshire**

Hagman tightened the strap on his pack and shouldered it. He took one last look at the cottage that had been his home for the past six years, ever since he'd wed, but he felt no pang to be walking out of it. Even if he stayed, they'd take it from him, soon enough. It was spotless, of course – to go leaving even a speck of dust behind would to be to let down his Mary, and even if one more failure didn't count much in the greater scheme of things, it was more than he could bear to think of. 

He shut the door, and walked towards the inn and the sounds of raucous laughter and a beating drum. 

"Dan? Lad?" his mother's voice was soft and pleading behind him. "Don't go lad, please." 

"Oh, Mam." The lanky man turned and took the slight, careworn figure into his arms. "I mun go. If I don't, there's nowt here for me now but the grey of prison walls." 

"What of me and your Dad, Dan? What of young Tom?" 

"I shall send you money. You'll not want from my going, I swear." 

"'Tis not your money the babe needs, but his father, and even if you did go to gaol for so long, you'd be here where the lad, and we, could see you. In a year, you'd be back at home, not under the ground, which you're like to be if you march away with yon redcoats." 

Hagman untangled the arms that clung to him and stepped away. "I'm no good to you Mam, and less to the boy. You have him, and he has you, and in that you've both got the best of what I have to give you." 

He could hear her weeping as he started again for the inn, but didn't turn. 

"Have you come to join with us, me bonnie lad?" The burly Sergeant who stood at the centre of the crowd enquired as Hagman shouldered his way toward the front. "Tis a venturesome life in the army, and not for the faint of heart, but you look to me like a man who can handle himself. There's booty to be gained for a man like that, not to speak of maids - a red coat'll unlock many doors that homespun will not, I swear." 

"Will it take me away from here, and keep me from gaol?" 

"Aye lad, that it will. Prison bars are just such a barrier as a maiden's legs, bound to part at the call of King George. As for taking you away, why lad it'll take you as far as the sea and your two legs will carry you." 

"Give my your shilling then, I'm with you. " 

The big man grinned, and pushed a book over towards Hagman, a shilling upon the right hand page. "Sign there, lad, and get fell in with the others in the yard." 

Laboriously, he formed the letters of his name, lifted the coin, and joined the small group milling outside. He saw instantly that he was a good five years older than the main of them, and nearly twice that on the youngest. These were no men, but boys, all apart from him. 

"Dan!" He felt a tightening in his chest as he heard the voice. It was Davey, his Mary's youngest brother. The boy couldn't be seventeen, yet. "What are you doing here, man?" he asked, "Have you run mad?" 

"I was never saner, Davey. There is nothing here for me but a cell, I have hopes of something better from the army." 

"But ...there's Tom, Dan, and your cottage." 

"His lordship will fill the cottage right soon, and my job along of it, no doubt. Why do you not speak to him, mayhap you could have both for yourself." He said nothing of his son, for what could he say? 

"I'll do no good as a farmer or a keeper, Dan, yon grinding's not for me. I'm off for a soldier, to find glory and to make something of meself." Davey pulled himself up to his full height, a weedy five foot seven, and tried to look brave. He only succeeded in looking pathetic in his brother-in-law's eyes. Dan shook his head, sadly. 

"Glory? You'll be more like to find a grave, lad." 

"And will not you?" 

"Aye, but then, it's a grave that I'm looking for. I'd be right glad to stay here if they hung a man for poaching, Davey, and that's God's truth, but they don't, so I must find my end in another place. But that's _me_ Davey, not you. Slope off now, before they march us out of here." 

Hagman knew he was talking to deaf ears. Davey was like all these lads, like the rest of the little Cheshire town, poor and cold and hungry. The only thing they could see was that army promised them full bellies, clothes and blankets, and most of all a chance grow rich on the loot that litters the battlefield. He couldn't blame them -- he just couldn't identify with them. 

At length, the sergeant packed up his drum and his register, and strode thorough to the yard. He strode over to Hagman. 

"I hear tell that you can play a fine fiddle, son, and that you're something of a singer too." 

"Aye, I'm none so bad." 

"Well, give us a merry tune then, lad, to set us up for the march. We've a ways to go, and we may as well start with light hearts." 

With a nod he picked up his fiddle, tuning up as the Sergeant and his men passed among the recruits handing out bread, cheese and ale -- their first meal at the cost of his majesty. Hagman, served first, ate quickly, and then began to play. Laughter and cheers greeted the first verse 

_How happy the soldier who lives on his pay,  
And spends half a crown on six pence a day;  
He fears neither justices, warrants nor bums,  
But pays all his debts with a roll of the drums,_

By the second chorus, the rest of the rag-tag group were gaily bawling out _Row de Dos_ and when the last strains died away, the Sergeant clapped a hand lightly on the Cheshireman's shoulder. 

"Thank'ee, lad," he said quietly, then turned away and bawled "Now then, you lot, get yourself off your arses and kiss your mothers and sweethearts goodbye – you're in the army now boys, and you can't sit around all day like bloody farmers." The recruits scrambled hastily to their feet. 

A few bellowed orders later, he had them shaped up in some form of order, and the drummer struck up a marching beat. Hagman set his step in time with it and began to walk. 

Walking beside him, Davey craned his neck to look back at the fast disappearing cluster of houses that was Cherisbrooke, waving madly, but Dan spared no glance for the home he left behind. Instead he fixed his eyes on the horizon, and his thoughts on Chester, and his hopes on the sea and the Americas, where he would surely find the death he yearned for. 


	2. The Girl I Left Behind Me

**September 1777 -Philadelphia**

Most of the British force was out carousing, either to shore up their bravery, Hagman thought, or perhaps to forget the need for it. Ferguson's Rifles, however, were not among them. The small contingent of the 70th - 80 green-clad troops, each picked for their marksmanship, were enjoying their most comfortable billet in many weeks. 

After the heaving of the ships that carted them first to the New World, and then again, round the coast to Chesapeake, after the bitter cold camps on the road, this big barn, with its quantities of soft straw was almost heaven, or seemed so. Perhaps, in the morning, he'd have a chance to discover. 

The thought brought a grim smile to Hagman's lips. No-one was more eager than he to make the comparison. About him, there were men praying, and he guessed that most of them were soliciting preservation from the Lord. Not so, his silent pleas. 

He sat, like many of his companions, oiling the barrel and stock of his weapon. The rifles were an odd bunch, he thought -made of long serving troopers in the main, battle hardened and grim faced, seemingly unafraid, but amongst them was a scattering of new recruits, like Dan, countrymen who knew how to shoot, and who proved themselves masters of the new gun, the rifle that Ferguson himself had developed. 

It was a fine weapon, Dan thought. It shot straighter than a musket time after time, and the loading -from the breech, not the muzzle -- was faster. It was a damned effective piece. Some part of him, though, was telling him that he'd rather use it for picking off deer in the Cheshire wood than killing men who were little other than Englishmen in different coats, their names shared by many of his companions -but he was a trooper in King George's army, and his job was not to choose the enemy, but to load and fire as many rounds a minute as possible into his midst. He eased his conscience with the thought that the damn Yankees would be firing as fast at him. 

Young Billy Price brought him a hot mug of thick black tea, and sat beside him. The boy was the oddest of all the oddities in the troop. Scarce more than a babe, a runty kid of sixteen or a little more, whose voice still squeaked into childish registers from time to time, he was as accurate a shot as any man in the troop, but he'd nothing of the older men's hardness, and hadn't learned how to hide his fear. 

He sought Dan out often, seeming to gravitate toward the taciturn Cheshireman, perhaps because, like Billy, he was new to soldiering, more likely because the older man didn't tell him to "keep your bleedin' marf shut, and your questions to yerself, Kid!" 

The lad reminded Dan of Davey, his brother-in-law, who'd gone into a line regiment at Chester, and he suffered his nervousness for Davey's sake. You could scarce blame him for it, tonight - the morning just coming would be the Rifles first major engagement as a troop, and they were leading the advance, together with the Queen's Rangers. 

"Be ye scared, Dan?" the boy whispered, gazing into his mug. 

"Nay Billy, what for? We'll die or we'll not, and all the fretting in the world'll do nowt to change it." 

"I'm feared of dying, Dan, I am. I've lived a bad life, Dan and I'm feared that I'll be cast straight into the fires of Hell." 

"Oh, Billy, dun't be foolish. You're nowt but a lad, you cannot have done anything so dreadful. And did not the Chaplain himself say God fought along of us? Where else could we be headed, if we fall but to His own side?" 

Dan made himself sound convincing, though he didn't believe that if God there was, he cared anything for the souls of the poor, like young Billy. Heaven and Hell were for the rich -if there was any justice whatsoever in the afterlife, the poor would just get to rest. 

The boy smiled at him then. Nodding as if in agreement and picked up his rifle, and imitated the others, running an oily rag up and down it. Silence fell, and Dan's thoughts drifted away from the present, to tomorrow when they would walk silently down the mist clad roads toward the ford on the Brandywine River, where George Washington's forces awaited them. Dan had little doubt he'd die in the morning, and hoped only to die well and swiftly. Perhaps. . .

"Give us a song, Dan" It was the Captain's quiet voice that broke into his reverie -making the words a command. "Something cheerful, I think." 

With a nod -Hagman spoke little, if he could avoid it -- then he began to pick out tune well known, well loved and more tan a little bawdy. As the first notes drfited out there were catacalls, which quited to a merry beating of time. 

_A lusty young smith at his vice stood a'filing   
His hammer lay by but his forge still aglow  
When to him a buxom young damsel came smiling  
And asked if to work at her forge he would go_

A cacophonous choir of voices and accents took up the chorus with delight, getting louder as the verses grew ever lewder, so that by the final verse it was like to raise the roof. 

_With a jingle bang jingle bang jingle bang jingle  
Jingle bang jingle bang jingle hi-ho_

"Sing The Girl I Left Behind Me, Dan" Billy Price urged as the laughter died away. Hagman's hand tightened on the fiddle's neck, wishing that they wouldn't always ask for this, that he could just deny the request, but already other voices were joining Billy's and he knew he'd not say no to them. None could know the pain it brought him, for he'd not told them, and all the other lads from Cherisbrooke had gone into other regiments where they could tell no tales. 

Pulling the bow back and forth across the strings, and twiddling the keys to tune the old fiddle, Hagman procrastinated, but in the end, he had to sing. 

_I'm lonesome since I crossed the hill,   
And o'er the moorland sedgy  
Such heavy thoughts my heart do fill,   
Since parting with my Betsey  
I seek for one as fair and gay,   
But find none to remind me  
How sweet the hours I passed away,   
With the girl I left behind me.   
  
O ne'er shall I forget the night,   
the stars were bright above me  
And gently lent their silv'ry light  
when first she vowed to love me  
But now I'm bound to Brighton camp  
kind heaven then pray guide me  
And send me safely back again,   
to the girl I left behind me  
  
Her golden hair in ringlets fair,   
her eyes like diamonds shining  
Her slender waist, her heavenly face,   
that leaves my heart still pining  
Ye gods above oh hear my prayer  
to my beauteous fair to find me  
And send me safely back again,   
to the girl I left behind me  
  
The bee shall honey taste no more,   
the dove become a ranger  
The falling waters cease to roar,   
ere I shall seek to change her  
The vows we made to heav'n above  
shall ever cheer and bind me  
In constancy to her I love,   
the girl I left behind me. _

Mostly, in the company of these men, amid their coarse jokes and rough comradeship, he could forget the reason he joined up. He could draw a blanket around him and roll up by the fire, a place so different from his home and forget it ever existed. 

He could forget his Mary lying stiff on the bed, yellow hair clinging to her head in the damp of sweat gone cold, the roses fled from her cheeks, while his mother rocked wept over the tiny, quiet bundle of flesh she held in a shawl against her breast. The babe, oddly did not cry -not Tom, the son Dan Hagman had so longed for, and had seeded in his beautiful young wife's body to grow there till, in the end, it killed her. That was what he'd fled when he joined the army, not Lord Aversleigh's justice for a few poached birds, whatever he might have said. 

And yes, mostly, he escaped from it. But on the night before a battle, when men pushed him to this song, and with death hovering in the darkness to rise with the dawn, he couldn't help but see her again, and the longing to lie with her in her cold bed, in the same way they had lain together so often in the long, hot, happy nights of their married life, came upon him like an ague. 

He put the bow aside and turned away at the end of the song, to hide the shaking of his body and the tears in his eyes. In time, he slept. 


End file.
